Open Malaysia

I found this report from UNESCO on their "Information for All Programme" (IFAP) and it highlights quite a few sound and appropriate recommendations on a myriad of emerging technologies, with special interests for developing nations:

"It is our hope that this study will impress upon the policy makers, community, producers and users the need to carefully observe evolutions in ICTs and, by so doing, to comprehend the ethical and moral consequences of technological choices on human rights in the Knowledge Societies."

Abdul Waheed Khan
Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information,
UNESCO

Directly addressing the issues on ODF (page 82): [my emphasis]

"UNESCO should meanwhile support open standards and protocols that are generated through democratic processes not dominated by large corporations.
The use of OpenDocument Format and other open formats should also be encouraged as they help mitigate lock-in to certain technologies."

Here, they have correctly identified the fundamental difference between ODF and MSOOXML
where the development and goals of the two specifications are wildly different.  OASIS/ODF was a vendor neutral collaboration from many parties, both commercial as well as non-commercial, while Ecma/MSOOXML was a one vendor dominated generated specification with the specific requirement to conform to its own format.

This should give further reassurances to policy makers that ODF is a safe choice to adopt. In contrast if a vendor suggests MSOOXML as a standard to adopt, we must be very suspicious of their motives and vested interests.

yk.